Moments to Grow

If life were made of moments—

Even now and then a bad one—

If life were made of moments—

Then you’d never know you had one.

                                Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods

              As much as that song gets stuck in my head on a regular basis—life IS made of moments woven together. Trying to be IN the moment, trying to remember all the moments—this has long been my work. I fear forgetting.

                This weekend held moments that made me stop, and think, and reflect, and weirdly NOT get emotionally overwhelmed by the racing torrent of time and loss that for so long has hijacked my response to most things.

                On Saturday morning some of my former students came to help us with yard work. They are fundraising for a trip, and I know they are great kids, so we got ourselves a little crew to help with the branchpocalypse our willow trees left in our yard after one too many windy winter storms.  I haven’t seen many of my students since I left my old job, so having a few come to my house was lovely.

Spring willow (last year--no leaves yet this year!)--one of 4 in the yard.

We had pros come take down the storm-damaged branches,

don't be alarmed. 

                I looked out my kitchen window as the boys arrived—did they have a new kid in the class? I did not recognize one of the young men bundled up against the cold. I went outside to say hello and realized the unrecognizable young man WAS one of my former students, who apparently grew 6 inches since last June.  Like, now he is taller than I am—which was NOT the case before.  And yes, I went out and said “OH MY GOSH DID YOU GROW LIKE 6 INCHES SINCE LAST YEAR???”

                He did, as did the classmate next to him, which I only realized when standing next to both of them.

                AGOG!

                Ok, so I know this happens, I have a son who grew through clothes before I even took the tags off, and even my formerly tiny child has finally grown to be a short teen—but in context of all, seeing this young man so tall and grown up gave me a moment of joy.

                I know, I know, me leaving would not stunt students’ physical growth—I just felt so happy to see these young people doing so well, growing, working together, chatting about silly things. It was a good moment that reminded me of a lot of good moments in my old job with these great kids.

                Once the yard was cleared, my husband started a job we have long discussed—taking down the swingset. We had put off this moment quite a while since my youngest was loath to part with the swingset, but the steps and rails were rotting despite our repair efforts, and with little cousins who come to play, I did not want anyone to get injured out there. Also, my youngest will be 17 in a few months.

The time had come.

I feared my response to this. I have often written about how hard it is for me to part with pretty much any part of our family history, especially in light of my daughter’s catastrophic illness. The Furby she received after very high stakes brain surgery in 2006 still stands as a creepy sentinel in the top of a closet. I can’t get rid of it. So I figured getting rid of the swingset would be excruciating.

Furby is Listening...always listening...

I remember agonizing over which one we could get on our very limited budget, spending hours looking online in the early internet days.  I remember getting it set up while my firstborn was away at camp, surprising him and his little sister when he got home. I remember the baby swing we had on there for my now almost 17 year old, and all the fun my kids have had out there over the years. So much remembering. So many good moments.

the last swing

But somehow, in this moment, I could remember all those moments and NOT get trapped there. Grace? Progress? Healing? No clue why. Just – it was ok. And I had to stop and say, whoa. This IS OK.

I didn’t see THAT coming. I fully expected angst galore!

Taking down the swingset, ending this era of my parenting is ok.

Letting go of a reminder of when my kids were young is ok—because we made it through. For so long I have been terrified to let go of ANYTHING, lest someday that be all we have left.

But our past can be better honored by taking DOWN the rotting cedar, and putting up something new. We will create a new lovely space out there for new rememberings, new moments of joy.

I am grateful for these moments, for zen flowing where normally anxiety and uncertainty rule.

Growth is good. Outgrowing a job, a swingset, heck, even a pair of jeans—ok, maybe less that one—celebrate those moments of growth. Know that you have them. And keep movin’ right along.

Um, officially outgrew the swing. 

Claiming Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all.

                        Emily Dickinson

            Ten days ago, a friend’s daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

We are not super close, this friend and I, but I have known her since childhood. Growing up, our families spent a lot of time together, my dad worked with her dad, we were in the same prayer group, etc.  In grown up life, my husband’s sister married her brother; two of her children were classmates with my children, and I taught 3 of her kids over the years.

So I know her well enough that the gut punch of any new diagnosis was magnified a hundred fold.

            Our smite was supposed to protect everyone else who ever knew us.

            Seriously. WE ALREADY GOT DEALT THE RANDOM BRAIN TUMOR CARD, HOW MANY MORE ARE IN THAT STINKING DECK?

            My “no F-bombs during Lent” went out the window on literally the second day. Dang.

            Watching the pain ripple through family and friends, seeing from another vantage point what it must have been like for those who love us when G got sick…and knowing pretty solidly how little S’s parents were feeling in each of those first nights in the PICU with their third grader, the long hours waiting for answers in the surgical waiting room, the dearth of information, worrying about your kids at home…my soul just shook. I don’t know how else to describe it.

            My husband doesn’t have the searing memories of those first days like I do.

            He is lucky.

            I just can’t believe there is no herd immunity for smite. Seriously. I have 2 kids with brain tumors. How can this happen to anyone else we know from pre-brain tumor world?

            I know my friend is not mercurial like I am. She is zen and steady and wrangles 9 kids with a smile. I am hiding under my bed most days with 3 kids (2 of whom are technically adults!).  I have talked to her via text a little to offer support and little words of whatever. I don’t want to be Bargey McBargepants—and not everything I know will be helpful right now.

            But I need her to know Hope.

            Hope is real.

            When things are so, so dark, and hope seems to be lost or at the very least obscured…hope is still real.

            Hope sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.

            Hope has to be grabbed in the dark, like a cosmic Marco Polo…holler for it, and reach out. You may end up splashing around for a while, but eventually, you might just catch it.

            I have written before about my challenges in holding on to hope over the years, my pins, bracelets, pictures, words, things I hold on to—literally tangible items—to remind me of hope.  I desperately yearned for hope, and some days had it, some days couldn’t grasp it…but hope is real.

            I have to find a way to share this with my friend.

            Two days after this devastating news, my G and I trekked to Massachusetts to surprise two of our dearest brain tumor friends who are celebrating their 21^st birthdays this year. I felt a little nervous about driving there alone, but the conviction that we Had To Be There was unshakeable.

            This was a celebration of 21, yes. But really—we were celebrating HOPE.

            These two mighty young women have been dealing with brain tumors and all their concurrent horrors for most of their lives. Surgeries, chemo, radiation, complications, lingering challenges, everything that onco-yikes can be, these young women have faced with strength and dignity. They are beaten but unbowed.

            As we shared pizza and ice cream and some ridiculously tasty cookies from NYC, all I could feel was a deep love and joy for these young women. They are both still in the thick of things. Both face challenges every minute. AND YET they ARE HOPE. They are hope over time.  

            Funny, spunky, and just keep going, slowly sometimes, but they keep on going.

            Even in the worst of brain tumor ugh—to paraphrase Maya Angelou –

            Still, they rise.

            And with them, their families, those who love them, their friends in and out of the brain tumor community. Hugging their mommas, these mighty, beaten but unbowed women who stood with me in our toughest hours, I just felt that connection, the connection of shared hope and pain and love and understanding.  Just being there reminded me that even as my soul relived that terrible aloneness of our own early days in brain tumor world, NOW we know we are connected to a much larger community—just not being alone is a great, great hope.

            Seeing these mommas renewed my hope.

            Hope does not guarantee a happy ending. Hope just helps us navigate whatever the story is in the moment we are in it. Hope helps us connect to something bigger than the bad moment that threatens to swallow us.

            This is the hope I need to share with my friend.  Hope is real. Hope is slippery, but it is real, and when things are darkest…hope can help us get through the night.

Please pray for little Shannon, as her family works to plan their next step through great uncertainty….

Zen and the Not Zen

Recently I have been working a lot, and while I find the balance of working 8 hours/then coming home and driving everywhere/feeding the horde/etc. almost impossible—hats off to everyone who does this all the time—the rhythm of being in a school, of working in an academic schedule, of a day broken into 40 minute blocks—all of these things are so delicious. There is zen in these moments, that sense of balance and peace that can be so elusive when everything in life is hitting the fan.

And when things are NOT hitting the fan, I feel acutely aware of how, in the words of Cosmo Sheldrake, “there’s no such thing as time to kill or time to throw away.” I have to use the time…

But I get stuck. I turn into a slug.

Maybe part of zen is accepting the moments of not zen, of accepting the stuck., of embracing the slug.

Ew.

I wonder if the Dalai Lama ever gets frazzled or overwhelmed by all the things? He is the most zen person I can think of. I wonder if he sometimes feels so much the weight of things, the old “the world is too much with us” reality.

The other day I did not have to go to school. My house was quiet and empty, the sky gray and cold. The hours before pickup #1 stretched out in a quilt of possibility.

Cue Slug Mode. 

Where was my do all the things? 

Where was my “no time to throw away”?

Sluuuuuuuuuuuuggy.

I made myself go on the exercise bike…when I know I have to exercise but feel like a slug, I know I can distract myself with YouTube while I get in 22 minutes on the bike. So I did. Building habits helps push past slug moments, even if in this case I was just a slug on a bike. 

I have not missed a day of yoga since January 1 (a goal for the year, even if it’s only 5 minutes)…so after the bike I decided to pick a quick yoga video. But hey, I said to myself, as I prepared to choose a yoga video on YouTube, first I’ll watch the new John Legend “Preach” video while I cool off for a second.

Fast forward 5 minutes to me in a weeping heap on my yoga mat.

Probably not Mr. Legend’s intention, but his artistic representation of how pain and injustice run rampant in our world flattened me. Literally to the ground, face to yoga mat, tears streaming.

How do we fix this? How do we end violence and strife and awfulness? How do we end the dehumanizing of each other? 

Does zen even matter? How do we fix this? 

I wish I could say that a blinding light appeared and an answer presented itself. 

Nope. 

I managed to scrape myself up and do some vinyasa flow to Brandi Carlile music, just trying to breathe, regroup, and settle my emotions.

15 minutes later, I trudged upstairs to my still empty house, a few less hours spread before me. My phone blinked a pile of notifications—

One of Dave’s family members had texted to share that a new baby would be joining the family in late summer.

And here, I CAN say that a light appeared, and in that group text flurry fest of hoorays and congratulations and smiles there was hope. Hope that life does go on, and families grow, and new beginnings keep beginning.

Awfulness still pervades so many daily interactions in America (and elsewhere). Injustice did not get fixed in that few minutes on a Friday morning.  But hope continues, and I could feel that.

Really—what came to me out of this day was a deep realization that it is ok to feel deeply. Maybe part of zen is NOT always staying completely unflappable—that is so outside the realm of my personality, I am flapping about all the time, a veritable Flappy McFlapmeister.

Even as we work to respond and not react to provocations both negative and positive—feeling deeply is good, and human, and honestly I think how God made us. Elie Weisel wrote about the perils of indifference, how NOT caring is worse than hate, more destructive and dehumanizing.  To feel deeply builds connection and wholeheartedness (to borrow from Brene Brown).  Freaking out-not healthy or productive. But the opposite of freaking out is not “I am a rock, I am an island.” I have tried that. That is misery, too.

My own quest for zen has, perhaps, been something of a quest to heal a lot of pain built up over a lot of years. Zen doesn’t mean being an automaton, or so deeply om-ing about that you disconnect from sorrow OR joy.  Zen isn’t hardening yourself so that you are impervious to stress (sigh). Maybe zen really means feeling the feelings, acknowledging that they are real, sitting with them, and continuing on may ultimately be what zen is all about.

Feeling all the feelings is hard.

Weeping over injustice and the pain of others, rejoicing in the joys of others—living life fully, engaging in the hard and the beautiful without getting sucked under—here is the challenge of zen.  I guess in my definition, zen really just means living in a state of shared humanity. Once again, in movin’ right along, I circle back to this. And once again, we return to zen as a journey, a progress, a path…living in a way that honors every other person as awesome. 

Phoo. I definitely need more coffee.